CAKE

US, 2005, 95 minutes, Colour.
Heather Graham, David Sutcliffe, Taye Diggs, Sandra Oh, Cheryl Hines, Bruce Gray, Sarah Chalke.
Directed by Nisha Ganatra.

Cake is a vehicle for Heather Graham as a comedian. Appearing in many films she ranges from drama to comedy (Roller Boogie, Austin Powers, From Hell, The Guru). Here she plays a young woman, free-spirited, a travel writer alienated from her father who decides to help him with a magazine as he has fallen ill. The magazine, Cake, is for readers who love weddings (in the Twenty- Seven Dresses vein).

Needless to say she has a single-minded boss (David Sutcliffe), a charming photographer (Taye Diggs) and some ironic friends (Sandra Oh, Cheryl Hines).

While the film is sceptical about this kind of magazine at the beginning, we enter with Heather Graham and her endeavours to make the magazine a success – and are led down the aisle all the way in a romantic comedy with sentiment.

1.The popularity of this kind of romantic comedy? From irony to sentiment? The target audience?

2.The title, wedding bells, the magazine Cake, the focus on weddings and the readership for this kind of magazine?

3.The presentation of an affluent world (the world of soap opera and television)? World travel, glossy magazines, social weddings?

4.Heather Graham as Pippa, her comic style, the background of her life, alienation from her father, her mother’s death, her mother’s magazine? Eight years away, not believing in marriage, casual in relationships? Being supported by her friends, especially Lulu? Her hurrying to the wedding? Her father’s illness, going to meet him, a reconciliation, offering of help, having to work in the magazine?

5.Pippa at work, the encounter with Ian, his charm? Discovering that he was the boss? His relationship to her father? Her relating to him, the strictness in the job?

6.Hemingway Jones, Taye Diggs’s charm, smile, the photographer? His work? Talking and bonding with Pippa? Romance?

7.Her attempts to improve the magazine, subjects, photos, interviews, layout? Ian and his reaction? A sense of failure? And success?

8.The ironies of the basic premise of the film and its opening? Its changing to popular and lush happy endings?

9.The delineation of the characters, Pippa’s friends, their stances, humour?

10.An easygoing romantic comedy?